


I will search the world, I will face it's harms

by thoughtfullyyoungduck



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Fix It Fic, Fix-It of Sorts, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie pushes Eddie out of the way, but gets hurt instead, but he's anxious about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24497098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtfullyyoungduck/pseuds/thoughtfullyyoungduck
Summary: It hurts way worse than it has any right too, but then again, Richie has never been stabbed by an intergalactic demon before, so what does he truly know anyway. The claw strikes him in the stomach, and Richie mistakenly glances down, blood spouting from the wound like a garden hose.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 112





	I will search the world, I will face it's harms

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think!

The deadlights are by far the weirdest experience Richie has ever been through. His awareness is muffled, and the things pennywise shows him appear secluded from him by murky and unpassable water. It’s not like virtual reality, it’s more a television show Richie follows intently, and can’t see to tear his eyes away from. He is the main roll, but he’s viewing himself from a third party. 

IT’s inspirations are clearly running dry, he repeats the same things over and over again, until even with only half a mind present, Richie notices that nothing that is happening is real. Unfortunately, that doesn’t take the fear away, rather adds something extra. The time Richie devotes to separate reality from illusion is time easier access to the deepest parts of his brain, the spots that sting the most when they’re touched upon, and Pennywise exploits with glee.

Eddie taunts him, more than a few times, sometimes about his personality and how he’s too fucking annoying to be friends or something more with, other times it’s simply about him being gay. The circumstances change, Richie confessing to Eddie after Neibolt, or Richie phoning in on Eddie from a thousand mile away, and rarely, Eddie and Richie are dating as Eddie packs his bags and tyrants over the fact that he can’t stand to be in the same room as the man who gets under his skin like a persistent itch, something that pricks and prods until you can’t stand it anymore.

Those situation are few and far between, and they’re the easiest for Richie to conform untrue, for a relationship with Eddie is something he prayed for every night as a kid, but also something he knows will always be out of reach.

When Pennywise gets bored of impersonating Eddie, he resorts to the other losers instead. There’s no other people in Richie’s life that have the ability to hurt him after all, in LA the he hardly has acquaintances. Bev kindly showing up to his apartment, her drawing the short straw, to tell him that he can’t hang out with the group anywhere, because Eddie feels uncomfortable with him now.

When Richie throws his all to promise that he won’t do it anymore, that he never planned on telling Eddie his true feelings in the first place, Bev pats his knee sadly, telling him that it’s too late to change now. She, nor any of his other friends, are ever disgusted by the fact that he’s into men, just revolted that he’s into Eddie specifically. Smart thinking on IT’s part, since Richie knows deep down his friends could never hate him solely for the type of person he falls in love with.

The illusion blur together, repeating themselves faster and faster and freezing all notions Richie conceives and he longs to bury himself in the water so this hell ends faster. Richie is pretty clueless about what happened to the kids Pennywise ate, but he hopes they died instantly and without long to worry about what was taken place.

Eddie, or at least Pennywise adaptation of him, turns his head ever so slightly to look real Richie in the eyes, his smirk so open it rips the side of his mouth and turns into carved smile– Richie still believes him to be handsome, and that’s pathetic – then says; ‘Richie. You’re going to let me die too?’

Richie frowns, disorientated, because that’s new. IT’s never addressed him before, and then he falls down harshly, his legs roughing the force of it all and docking on his back with a loud smack. His head slams the surface, brittle pricking his back and possibly leaving tiny indents from the force on which he landed on them. The drop skidders Richie after he already came to a stop, echoing and prolonging his suffering.

Eddie crawls on top of him, hands located on either side of Richie’s head to stabilize himself, crowding over him and in doing so obstructing his view of Pennywise. He’s but a breath away from actually nudging against Richie, and Richie urges to turn his head and connect their skin.

‘Rich, Rich.’

Richie squeezes his eyes shut to ground him, the images flashing in his mind rendering him delusional and unable to focus on anything, except Eddie when their eyes connect.

‘Yeah, there he is.’ Eddie beams, so different from the person IT represented him to be. His words echo in Richie head, ‘you’re going to let me die too’ sounds like a warning, and if Richie could hold on to a thought for longer than a second he might be able to process it and do something about it.

‘I think I did it, I think I killed IT’, he’s so proud of himself, and brave and Richie wants to thank him, longs to reach up and tangle his fingers in Eddie’s hair and draw their faces closer, to kiss him, and he does, tugging on Eddie’s cloths to have him lean in, but then the words repeat and he chooses to instinctively push Eddie off of him with all the might he possesses.

Not that that’s much, compared to Eddie Richie’s physic is one of a sad old lump of potato’s and there was no way Eddie didn’t work out every day, - god wouldn’t that be a sight to see- so it’s only by the surprise that Eddie lets himself roll to the side, his eyes wide and unclear about Richie’s intention.

Richie’s unsure of his own intent, just that it was something he needed to do to keep Eddie safe told to him by a feeling in his gut, but when he rolls over to guard Eddie with his body, his leg protests painfully. Broken, most likely, after the fall, but the moment of hesitation is enough to have Pennywise viciously strike. Then his broken leg and the brittle, more obnoxious than anything else, is the least of his concerns. Any lingering doubts about this being another show from a different caliber in the death lights evaporate like the wind.

It hurts way worse than it has any right too, but then again, Richie has never been stabbed by an intergalactic demon before, so what does he truly know anyway. The claw strikes him in the stomach, and Richie mistakenly glances down, blood spouting from the wound like a garden hose. His breath hitches, panicky cupping around the claw to stop the bleeding, but all he succeeds in doing is coating his hands in the dark red liquid. The pain radiates from his stomach to the tips of his toe and his head, not a single spot left unscathed, just a competition of which part causes the most anguish.

‘Richie’, Eddie freaks, laying next to him and staring shell shocked at the scene. In the distance, Bill bellows a ‘no’. Pennywise lifts his entire body up from the floor effortlessly, dangling him up like a piece of meat and discarding him across the other side of the cave. He hits the cave wall first, and tumbles down with his side scaling the edges of pointy rocks, scramming his wounds further.

His hands enclose uselessly around air, finding nothing to stop himself from plummeting. The ground awaits him with open arms, Richie’s head ricocheting on a large piece of rock where his head cascades on, splitting open his forehead. Merciless, Richie welcomes the blackness that sinks him into unconsciousness, but not before hearing Eddie agonizing shout of Richie’s name.

\----

Occasionally, Richie picks up on bits and pieces of a conversation he actively should be involved in, - this is still a life or death situation - but he’s too far gone in his own head to do anything but bite his lips as an outlet instead of screaming out in torment.

Eddie wills him awake by the sheer force of desperation and howling, his words interrupted by his own sobs and harsh heaving. Richie strains his eyes open, and he’s no longer positioned in the way Pennywise threw him down. He sits up in an enclosed space within the cave, watching Bill’s back step away from him and rush over to follow the only other person he can see, Ben.

He almost screams for them to come back, he doesn’t want to die alone, but then he notices that he’s not alone at all, and that Eddie is fluttering around him, jacketless with a stripe of blood smudge across his forehead. Eddie hates that, he washes away the tinniest piece of dirt to himself up clean up, water costs be damned, but he doesn’t put in the effort to rub it away. If Richie could do it for him, he would.

He’d done it before in middle school, when Eddie in his hast to run away from Richie trying to dry his wet hands on Eddie’s back, collided with an opening door, hitting him full force just above his hairline. He’d frighteningly looked to Richie for guidance, who saw the blood and decided to conceal it, pretending like everything was okay. He’d carried the guilt all day, until Eddie set the record straight and ensured Richie he was not mad at all, he in fact found it quite funny, and swore to Richie that he better watched his back at all times.

The revenge was a push from the quarry cliff with his dry clothes still on, while Eddie stood high and mighty over the edge cackling at his demise. 

Richie lolls sideways with most of his weight resting on Eddie, who shrugs it off like Richie weighs nothing and continues to babble, even though the ringing in Richie’s ears is still going strong and he can’t distinct anything tangible. His thoughts are scattered and grasping onto them does nothing, they slip away like sand between fingers.

He focuses really hard, because Eddie always says important stuff, and Richie always listens to him like he hung the moon, so this time shouldn’t be an exception. It might be the last time he’ll be able to.

Thanks to some unforeseen force, his glasses, cracked and skewed, are still on. How they managed to stay tucked on Richie’s face is unbeknownst to him, after the throwing and falling, but Richie’s indebted. 

‘Come on Rich, it’s okay. I’ve gathered a plan. We’ll be out of here in no time.’ Eddie remains sturdy, a solid force Richie can tap energy for himself, but the disheveled hair and trembling bottom lip indicate that Eddie is not doing as well as he wants Richie to believe.

Eddie’s jacket serves as a cloth to tampon Richie’s blood, drenched in blood with some of it caked on already. Richie wonders how long he was out for.

‘Eddie, we need you’, Mike beckons him over, pleading Eddie to aid them in the fight. Weakly Richie ushers him off, but this time Eddie is prepared and steels himself, not allowing him to move an inch.

‘They’ll deal with it on their own. I’m staying’, he firmly says, leaving no room for argument, and Richie’s too tired for familiar banter, so he lets the issue rest.

He shrivels the top part of the cardigan up when Eddie’s distracted, so he can prod at his open laceration, in awe of the amount of blood it continues to spew. The injury is large enough that realistically the cloth won’t help much, even Richie can tell, the intestines peek out into the open world, a place they’ve never seen and Richie hoped they never would. ‘Wow’, he breathes lamely, capturing Eddie’s focus.

Eddie shrieks in panic. ‘Don’t touch that Richie. Stop. Is that your thing huh? Pain’, he shoots for a joke but only manages to draw out a chuckle laced with coughs of blood.

‘It doesn’t’, Richie tries, pausing to swallow a large cluster of blood back down.

‘What doesn’t Rich?’

‘Hurt. I can’t feel anything.’

And it’s true, the torment is no longer present to force Richie to suffer until his last breath, a fitting end to his life that proceeded it. In place is left no feeling at all, not even Eddie’s hand who touches his bare skin to steady him. The only thing Richie can definitively notice, is that he’s freezing cold. In a way he’s never been before.

The cold is bone deep, icing in his veins as severe as the time he went sleiing in his yard without putting on gloves or a thick coat to cover him and ended up with pneumonia. He angles for his sweater disposed by the entrance of the cave, but Eddie is blind to see what Richie is trying to convey and his muscles stop cooperating, falling helplessly in a heap on his lap. Tiredness is weighing him down.

Richie could ask Eddie for a hug, he’s that cold that he’s willing to put his dignity on the line, but Pennywise could be lurking and Eddie has to be alert to protect himself, and Richie assumes that not even Eddie’s warmth will heat him up enough to get rid of this chill.

The eyelid of Eddie’s doe eye twitches, defeating the purpose of forcing a smile on his face and a reassuring shrug, and baring his soul to Richie who’s always know all about his tells. Eddie’s worried, never a good sign, and Richie dares to think about what’s going to happen next. His death. There’s no way out with him, the descent down the well alone enough trouble than he’s worth, and if the fucking clown plays hard to get for much longer, the fight will simmer on for a lot longer.

‘Richie look at me, come on asshole look at me.’ Eddie inches Richie’s face his way, the hand on his jaw helping him do it completely numb to Richie. Since Eddie refrains him from poking his wound, Richie nibbles on his bottom lip, biting down hard enough it should leave a small injury for him to distinguish. All it accomplishes is adding more blood pooling in his mouth.

‘Come on Rich. You’re the most talkative person I’ve ever met in my life, tell me about your first stand up performance huh, what was that like?’ Eddie pleads, shoving his fabric deeper into the wound, now Richie confessed he’s unfeeling.

‘No, iss not nteresting enough Eds.’ He might slur, but at this point his surrounding are coated in a haziness Richie can’t shake off. His first stand-up was scheduled two weeks after leaving Derry, and his gags all had been derived of moments shared with the losers. By the time he began spouting off joke after joke he figured he had gotten his inspiration from other people’s life experiences, mind blank on providing clues about his best friends. It’s too sad and frustrating to reminisce on the abandonment that hit him full force for the first time after the show, and wouldn’t leave for a very long time. 

The nickname alights something in Eddie, breaks down the last of his defenses of a stoic face and lets him burst out in hysteric tears and weeps, hitting Richie to the deepest of his core.

‘It is Richie. I want to know. I’ll be the target for you to dummy practice your voices and jokes on in the future, and I won’t roast you, I promise.’

‘I lke getting roastd by you Eds.’

Eddie drops his head to heave in a laugh, looking back once to see where there’s friends are and then whisking back as if to prevent Richie from dying the second he refocuses his sight. In any other situation Richie would preen, occupying all of Eddie’s attention, but this is in a slightly different way than Richie imagined. 

‘Then I will. I’ll argue with you all night long. I want to discover who you were growing up and the mistakes you made, and I’ll even spill the beans on my greatest failures and trust me’, a humorless laugh, ‘there’s a lot of them. Please give me that change Rich. I can’t have the chance if you die on me now.’

Richie spits out a swath of blood, dripping down his chin before getting swooped up by the back of Eddie’s wrist to clean him.

‘Eddie, I.’ coughing, Richie takes a breather and mulls over what he share with Eddie now. Part of him argues to lock his secret up in a box and hide it ten feet underground – he’ll be buried with it soon – so no one will ever find it and expose it, and so Eddie can remember him with fondness, not with barely concealed revolt that Richie wanted to swipe spit with him. Another part yearns to shout it so loud it echoes the cave and shoves it in Pennywise’s dumb fucking face that he, like Eddie, can be brave too, and was, at the very end.

‘Shh, don’t work yourself up. You’re going to occupy a lot of strength during recovery.’

Eddie talks to him like Richie has the smallest change to survive, which he does not, but it makes Richie calmer, the knowledge that someone believes in him and in how long he can hold out.

Fatigue begins to call on him, angling him away from Eddie to slide down and lay on his side so he can sleep. It’s not rational, if anything he’d rest on Eddie for as long as he’s permitted, but Eddie will be pissed if he sleeps, so maybe he won’t regard it this way.

‘Hell no you won’t.’ A hand on his biceps manhandles, with great fumbling on both parts, him to sit with his back towards Eddie’s chest, giving Eddie the opportunity to both hold the wound closed and Richie to sag in comfort, trapping him between muscular arms he wishes he could feel.

‘Please Rich, tell me what I need to talk about to keep you awake. I’ll talk about fucking bread if that’s what you’re interested in as long as you don’t close your eyes.’

Richie chuckles softly, more exhaling than actually snickering, swinging his head from side to side.

‘alk bready to ‘e.’

‘Your jokes suck even more than usual.’

Ouch, is what Richie tries to say, but his lips tingle and won’t cooperate.

Eddie’s chest puffs up and down, the muscles on his legs locking so tight they vibrate in anxiousness. Richie pulls on a string of textile, tugging it out of place and it gives, then discarding it to the side because Eddie can’t stand his clothes not looking pristine clean. The action is pointless, with Richie’s back now firmly held against Eddie’s shirt there’s no way he won’t throw it out. 

‘Okay, then how about this, I’m going to tell you all about how fucking in love I am with you. I’m not doing in some filthy sewer without me kissing you, and I’m not kissing you with all this blood and grey water leeched to you, but I will say it, I won’t loss my nerves again. Kid me envisioned this whole life story you and I would live out when I told you about my crush, in such detail I could have beaten Ben in a story writing competition.’ Eddie pauses, staring off into the distance to relive the memories, then he resumes. ‘And then you can do with that information what you choose, but I can’t do it in here okay?’ Eddie rants, right hand wildly accentuating his words.

Richie stops breathing, the process of Eddie words too hard to handle, then he stops breathing for another reason altogether.

\---

He’s resting flat down, breathing in and out in a much easier way than he caught himself doing for a while now, and the pain is mostly gone, leaving nothing but a small ache. His brain begs him to go back to sleep, to forgo any problems --if Pennywise is still alive he peacefully exempts himself from doing anything with that information thank you very much – but the pit on his stomach is swirling and nauseating him, and Richie has a history throwing up during inappropriate times, something he wants to avoid it this time. Sitting up might help, the first step in that being opening his eyes.

The edges of the sheet are tucked in so tightly that Richie finds it hard to move, which is weird because Richie kicks and tousles in his sleep so severe that the only man he ever had a one night stand with abandoned the bed to return home at two in the morning, unable to stand his fidgeting.

The medal bars on the edge of the bed chain Richie in, like he’s a toddler that needs help to prevent falling out of bed. Nothing in the room is blurry, Richie’s glasses still perched on the bridge of his nose.

A metallic taste lingers in his mouth, refusing to disintegrate no matter how many times Richie swallows it down. He aches for relief that comes in the form of drink, preferably ice cold water to sooth the burning pain flickering up in his throat.

His memories are still in his head, loud, clear and pressing, including Eddie’s confession or whatever the hell the last words he heard before tapping out were. Eddie could have said those things purely to amaze Richie so much that he would fight and hold out, not aware of the strain this would put on Richie’s emotions. Somehow Richie feels like he should examine that in greater detail, but there’s a bubble separating his mind and the memory, a cover that can be peeked under but not touched upon, shielding him from what could be a pretty nasty panic attack.

With a tad of force Richie can break the bubble and engage in the meaning behind locution, but he prefers to keep himself calm for a little while longer.

That means there’s only two options, either Pennywise is still alive and Richie is about to get fucked over, badly, or the losers somehow victoried and won, without help from him. Richie pleads for it to be the last one.

He’s in a hospital, that much is obvious by the stench of disinfected clogging up his nose, dampening the excitement of apparently surviving the hell hole Pennywise resided in.

The room, bigger than the previous one he ended up in after an escapade of binge drinking, is empty, exempting the nurse tampering with a machine attached to him by wires pricked in his skin. Richie starts counting how many but loses his record after the fourth tube.

She spares him no glance, full attention on filling in the tempo of his heartbeat, blood pressure and temperature on a nursing sheet.

Outside a group of people buzz in the hallway, sounding like the losers, but they pass Richie’s door without a moment of hesitation.

The television is paused on a crappy music video post, the song background to the wiring and buzzing of the equipment Richie is hooked up to. Robin Thicke’s blurred line annoyingly etches itself to a spot in Richie’s brain to stay for the next few days. The song is so blatantly sexist and over the top loaded with masculinity Richie accidentally let it slip in a few interviews that he liked the song, another way to hide his true self and the person behind the Trashmouth brand.

He tries to speak, but the lack of moisture catches up to him and all his is capable of letting out is a small squeak. The nurse doesn’t pick up on it, walking across the bed and stripping loose the duvet to investigate the cast on Richie’s leg.

Could it be possible that the losers scattered and went home already, unaware if Richie was okay but not caring either? Did they call Steve to deal with the mess so they didn’t have to? He doesn’t think his friends would put him through something like that, but then again, he has no idea what transpired after conking out.

His overthinking about loneliness gives way to overthinking about the state of his friends, if they’re alive and well or if Pennywise struck one last time to off another member of their close knit group.

Maybe this is an illusion, a heartless game that allows Richie to release his worries, think that he’s safe only to pull the rug out under him and dangle him in the reality where all his friends are dead.

He stops his mind before it can spiral further. If that is what happened, Richie will be glad to die too. He can’t go back to greeting people he passes in the street and that being the only communication he has all day, to engaging in a conversation with a stupid mirror because it’s the only one not judging him, spotting ever single detail about him and his appearance that makes people actively circumvent him.

Part of the reason Richie limited his social circle has to do with the amount of effort and energy a friendship sucks out of him. Scooping more and more of all the ways that made Richie, so Steve can present a preferred client on front of potential sponsors and fans. He always has to chip away at his personality, and piece together a shell of acceptable features in front of people so he has a chance at getting accepted. While starting out in the comedian branch, Richie truly believed authenticity was important, but years of experience shaved away that idea. It was never like that with the losers. It was never like that with Eddie.

The nurse empties a syringe filled with a sedative, preemptive to the pain shadowing Richie’s body but not yet attacking. His mind fizzles out, the drugs lulling him into a deep sleep.

‘Shit that’s strong,’ Richie croaks out without thinking, incapacitated by the medication. The nurse jumps away shocked, the syringe ricocheting on the ground and her hand jittering.

‘Mr Tozier?’ She inquires, voice pinched, but Richie has already said goodbye to land of the awake.

\------

By the time the medication is metabolized, it’s dusk, the entire room blanketed in an orange glow. The tv is switched off. Without opening his eyes, Richie can tell Eddie is next to him, his presence comforting and attention drawing.

He still peeks from under his eyelashes to confirm though, greeted by the sight of Eddie steadily observing him in between heatedly typing away on his phone. He sends out the impression of being calm and composed, freshly showered if the brand new pants and shirt are anything to go by. Upon further inspection, Richie realizes it’s his shirt Eddie is wearing. His heart skips a beat, the heart monitor picking up on it – traitor – and Eddie shoots a dagger towards the machine as if simply glaring at it will be enough to force it to keep beating regularly.

Contradictory to the previous time he woke up, the pain is firing burst of indescribable pain near the area of his stomach, and when that pain ebbs away, the nagging ache remains. Richie groans, squinting on eye open to see that Eddie zeroes in on him, leaning forward on the plastic chair to get a closer look.

He says nothing, perceiving every surface of Richie’s body with a smoldering gaze.

‘Eddie?’ Richie asks eventually, unable to deal with the pain nor the silence filling the room. Eddie blinks in surprise, inching back in his chair startled.

‘Richie?’

‘No, the fucking pope. Who else would I be?’

Eddie laughs, ‘No it’s just that. You’ve opened your eyes a couple of times before, except all you did was stare and then the drugs took you out again before you could say anything.’

‘Oh? I beat the drugs before but you weren’t here so it’s not my first time.’ It’s not intended to sound accusing, but it does. Richie can decipher from Eddie’s facial expression that he’s flabbergasted, the cogs in his head turning. A light-bulb goes off as Eddie rolls his eyes like Richie stated the stupidest thing ever, his hand covering Richie’s to draw his attention.

‘Off fucking course you’d wake up the one time I’m not here. I swear I was here all the time Rich, I only left once to demand more updates on how you were doing.’

Richie nods dumbly, fingers tracing the pattern on the hospital sheets to distract him.

‘Say, did he happen to give you any updates on how much pain medication I’m supposed to receive?’

Eddie hurriedly jumps up, lifting his hand up from where it covered Richie’s, is phone clattering to the ground with a loud bang. Eddie doesn’t check the destruction or even bothers to remove it from the floor, too busy dotting over Richie.

‘Are you in pain? See I knew the nurse gave you the wrong dosage, I fucking told her too but did she listen? No.’

‘Eddie?’

‘Now you’re in pain and we have to do damage control instead of damage prevention and-‘

‘Eds’, Richie successfully ends Eddie tirade and stops him from going after the poor nurse and her carrier, but it drains him from all his energy and renders him exhausted.

‘Right, hold on Rich, I’ll go get the doctor.’ He pets Richie on the arm twice, his fingertips lingering after the second strike as he stares enthralled, like he can’t believe he’s allowed to touch Richie in that way. As far as Richie is concerned, Eddie is allowed to do anything would him. But after he gets his pain medication. 

‘Well doctor K I’m disappointed,’ Richie call to him after Eddie exits the room, ‘I thought you were the one taking care of me?’

The doctor, Nathalie, ups his quantity per his request, but warns him not to request any more, the amount dangerously high as it stands. She’s a nice woman, and has enough human knowledge to scurry away the moment she administers the pain killers, promising to be back to explain his medical condition later. He is notified that he’s been out for two days, resting while the losers gathered his and their stuff and moved into a hotel in the adjacent city so they moved out of Derry, but close enough that dropping by is no trouble at all.

Richie’s grateful, he’s so tired he won’t be able to retrain any information anyway, and Eddie is jumping at the bits for a chance talk things through. And who even does that, articulating their feeling and upsets? Not him that’s for sure, he keeps his feeling repressed like all the cool kids do these days. The pain slowly ebbs away, sometimes back with a fire that has Richie writhing but mostly suppressed by the drugs.

He’s pacing in front of the bed, not even deeming a goodbye to Nathalie, mouthing words and sentences Richie can’t hear. He seems to purposefully twirl the open space around his ring finger, the spot his wedding ring was on but is now absent.

‘So, the others are okay?’ 

‘Yeah, we’re all tired but good.’ Eddie reassures him, without elaborating on exactly how they managed to stay alive and what Pennywise’s state of being is. Eddie being as unbothered as he is, is an answer to the question all on his own.

‘Aren’t you gonna leave? It’s way passed visitation hours right? Won’t someone come in and escort you out?’ 

‘No, they gave up on that last night.’ Eddie waved of his concerns, not faltering his step.

‘Okay. That’s some story I’d like to hear.’

‘There’s no story. They told me to leave, I told them to fuck off and that I wouldn’t be going anywhere until you walked away with me.’ The admission leaves Richie speechless, Eddie who once refused to go to the bathroom after stopping by the school nurse because she told them to go straight to class in middle school held his ground and disobeyed a direct order, was indescribable. That amassed with the revelation in the sewers is too much for Richie to deal with, so he aims for a tension breaker.

‘Dude, you’re going to snap in half if you stay as rigid as you are now. I can see the knots in your neck, get some sleep. I’ll be fine.’

‘First of all, don’t call me dude. Second of all –‘

‘You rather have me call you Eds?’

‘Yes, and stop interrupting me.’ Richie didn’t think he could if he tried. ‘You’re worried about me? Look at you. You nearly died Rich.’

‘But I didn’t.’ He shrugged, wincing as the movement irritated his stitches. Ripping out the only thing that keeps him alive would really be the icing on the top to an already dramatized week.

‘Richie stop’, Eddie begged, stopping his frantic stewing to approach Richie. ‘Can we talk about what happened down there?’

Richie frantically denies, ‘Nope’, he overenthusiastic expresses, fearing rejection, burrowing deeper in the mattress to ignore Eddie’s pleading eyes. Those suckers have a way of encouraging Richie to ignore common sense and assist in whatever idea Eddie had designed, but he had no intention of ever addressing this issue. Eddie looks prepared for this, ready to battle with words and get his way, but the heart monitor speeds up a notch. Eddie heaves a sigh, but relents, walking forward and griping Richie’s arm towards him.

He uncurls the tight ball Richie made of his hand, soothing over his skin with his fingertips in a way that resembles a dance. He wields both his hands, one separating Richie’s pinky and ring finger, the other stuck between his thumb and pointer finger, opening up room for him to work with. Careful not to scratch Richie with his fingernails, he swoops the formers arm and hand, slow enough that he can retract if he doesn’t like it.

Bearing down on the underside of Richie’s wrist, in a circle back motion, Eddie repeats the gesture three times before moving up.

The motion’s relaxing, and Richie sags down as the tension in his arm dissipates. Eddie watches Richie with a pleased smile on his face, massaging both firm and light to differentiate the best result.

‘That feels really good.’

‘It’s a hand massage. I’d give your shoulders a rub but then you’d have to move and you cannot move. Moving results in more pain so no matter what you do, don’t move you stubborn idiot. Anyway, it’s good for reducing anxiety. I do it to myself all the time.’

Richie hoots, not deterred by the pinch Eddie gives his skin in response, the word chose too funny to give up.

‘Cave man’, Eddie spews out, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the comment, unnecessary but so Richie it hurts to think they lost this, the easiness and the jabs and the bond, strong enough to sacrifice the one for the other.

‘There are three Yin Meridians in the arm; lungs, heart and pericardium.’

‘The what from the what now?’

‘Yin meridians? Yin as in the up flow of energy in your body? Ying and Yang? ’

‘Eddie, what the fuck about me makes you think I would have any clue about any of this?’ Richie deadpans, his eyes staring at Eddie flatly.

‘Yeah well, tell me you at least know what a pericardium is?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘It’s a double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the great vessels, filled with pericardial fluid’, at the ignorant stare he received from Richie he dumbed down his explanation. ‘It’s the sac around your heart.’

‘Oh, why didn’t you start with that? Wait my heart has a sac around it?’ Richie’s smirk grew, but Eddie pulled the plug on that quickly.

‘Beep beep Richie not now. Anyway, shut the fuck and let me do my thing.’

He resumes massaging Richie palm, languidly and without hurry, the sun settling even lower and pitching the room red.

With a big shudder, Richie crushes his eyelids shut to avoid looking at the color as it reminds him of his own blood leaking out of him. It’s irrational, they’re different shades after all, but the thought lingers, like a cyst you can’t get rid of.

The benefit of removing sight is that touch and smell become intensified, the kneading firmer then it felt before. Eddie smells primarily of hospital soap and food, but underlying there’s the scent of vanilla shampoo, the same one Eddie applied as a kid. The sight of his own shampoo in his shower at home pops into his head, suddenly abundantly clear why Richie never contemplated buying another scent but stuck to the same plain vanilla one. 

He changes direction by palpating the webbing between Richie’s thumb and pointer finger, prodding the skin from the bottom to the top and then sliding off.

‘I’m supposed to ‘throw away’ the negative energy, connotation marks, but I can’t do that without you making fun of me so I won’t.’

‘You know me so well’, Richie dramatically sniffles, his free hand whipping away a fake tear.

‘Yeah, I really do’, is Eddie responds, stopping his ministration and seeking eye contact with Richie to get his point across.

Richie slides his hand away from Eddie’s, avoiding eye contact by dropping his chin to his chest but being stopped by a hand on his chin, forcing him to stay still. 

‘I’m tired, go back to the hotel okay?’

‘I’m divorcing my wife’, Eddie states out of the blue, tracing the edge of Richie’s chin absentmindedly. The intonation of his voice is bland, the same as if he’s talking about the weather, but his eyes are stealthy and Richie knows that he means every word.

‘Wha-?’

‘And I didn’t say this to pressure you into developing feeling for me. I don’t wanna force you to do anything, but I crashed my car in the middle of traffic remembering you all and I realized that I hadn’t been living. That night in the restaurant was the first time in twenty seven years I felt like myself again and was happy. And a clown hunted us down, isn’t that a sob story? Rich, you almost fucking died in front of me and there was nothing I could do.’

Eddie’s eyes dampen suspiciously, blinking one to many times for it to go unseen. ‘And all I could think about was how much of a coward I am, and how there was nothing I could do to stop you from dying.’

‘Eds, that wasn’t on you.’

‘Yes it was. I could have run after you faster, been more brave and stop you from blindly staggering into a trap, or if I clung to you IT might have only hurt me and you’d be unscathed.’

‘Eddie, I would gladly take another skewer to the stomach as long as you’re alright.’

‘But that’s the problem isn’t? You sacrificed your life for me and I froze when IT attacked you, I watched and did nothing.’ Eddie’s voice raised into hysterics, and he was working himself up to the point that he vibrated with consternation.

‘And I would have let you die without confessing. I called your contacts in your phone list and the only one who even bothered to return my calls was your manager, and he didn’t give a shit if you were okay, he just asked when you would be cleared to perform another performance. Said that it was of the upmost importance that you righted the wrong you did on your last stand up.’

Richie face flushed bright red, utterly ashamed that even Eddie noticed how little people are present in his life.

‘They all suck. It’s their loss that they didn’t bother getting to know you, I just wish that I was courageous enough to make you understand that there is someone who adores you, and that person is me. The other losers too but it’s different with me. I hate the fact that you woke up without anyone here to support you. I knew you were going to pull that trick so I even showered in the hospital so I didn’t have to go very far. Showered Richie, in a place full of germs and bacteria. And for the record, for this to be a hospital they have really bad hygiene, if I called a health inspector here they might have to close down.’

Eddie rants, his hand doing the chopping gesture that Richie leered out of him at every turn possible. In the same way that Richie resorts to humor as protection, Eddie resorts to germ facts. Richie brushes the comments on bacteria to the side, more focused on the everything else Eddie vocalized.

‘I lived Eds, so you don’t have to worry about that, and I shouldn’t have said that to you, I really didn’t mind, I was back under in no time.’

‘You’re not getting it. You repeatedly told me I’m brave, and maybe I was but not enough.’ Eddie sinks down back in the plastic chair besides Richie’s bed. ‘I drifted through life with the mentality that my life wasn’t terrible and I would have to be content with that. I never considered the possibility that it could get a hell of a lot better too. Starting today, I’m going to be honest and open about everything, and that starts with divorcing my wife’, he let silence linger a tad, to prepare Richie or perhaps steel himself, ‘and telling you how in love I am with you.’

Richie gasps, even though it wasn’t the first time Eddie uttered those words. In the sewer Richie rationalized that Eddie presumed he was going to die and pitied him, a last friend favor he didn’t know was going to cost him, but now there is no reason for Eddie to lie.

This is all Richie ever dreamth of getting in life, the reciprocated love from the man he cherished deeply, so why did revealing his secret not get any easier?

I love you too Eds. I’ve loved you since you stood by the sidelines of the sandbag, to horrified to join me and Stan because you saw a bandage abandoned on top of the sand and screamed at me to stay away from it when I offered to pick it up and toss it out for you. My whole live I’ve believed I’m this vile and nasty person who loved men the way he should love women, someone who deserved to rot in hell alongside the scum of the earth, but apparently you see men the same way, and how can you be anything other than an extraordinary, bewitching gift from god?

‘Do you got a bae? Or not?’

Eddie frowns, his eyebrows knitting together and his head tilting to the side.

‘I’m sorry what?’

‘Is you tryna date? Or not?’ Richie cringes, idiocy at its finest. ‘I don’t know why I said that, forget it.’

‘What the fuck is a bae? And I am trying to get it on with someone, but he’s dodging any viable answer I can detract from him.’

‘It’s Magcon. They were really popular in 2014, and I involved them in one of my quips which is how I know who they are.’

‘Show me a picture and I still would be lost on who any of them are.’

‘Oh come man, If teenage you would have definitely had a crush on Cameron Dallas or some shot, if you were born in the 2000.’

‘Teenage me had a crush on you. I had it so bad that I never had a celebrity crush right up till college and forgetting you.’

Richie shuts up again, his heart growing in size multiplied by eleven. All this time all it took was Richie getting his head out of his ass and they could have been dating for years.

‘Look Rich, I’m sorry for dumping this on you. It’s not fair and I solemnly swear I won’t let it affect our friendship if you won’t?’

‘No Eds, wait just give me a second, dude, let me try that again.’

‘Don’t call me Eds.’

‘I thought you avowed that you preferred Eds to dude?’

‘What’s up with the fancy word choice dumbass? No wait stop changing the subject’, Eddie hisses, his hands twisting together in his lap the only indication of how nervous riddled his body.

‘I feel the same way’, Richie remarks, tone quieter then Eddie has ever heard. ‘I’ve never had someone that I loved and sure as hell no one who told me they loved me so I don’t know how this goes.’

Eddie laughs breathlessly, a huge burden lifted off his shoulders. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah Eddie Spaghetti, believe it or not there’s not been one other person that fell for my good charms.’

‘I was talking about you feeling the same way, dude. And euh.. neither have I. With a guy I mean, and my marriage with Myra wasn’t exactly a prime example of love, so how about we figure it out together?’ 

‘We can start a celibacy club. Until one of us gets pregnant by cheating on the other with their best friend and then hides it by claiming that we got pregnant via the hot tub.’

‘Okay what the fuck are you quoting now?’

‘It’s Glee’, Richie grins, leaning into Eddie’s touch when he caresses his cheek.

‘Idiot’, Eddie whispers affectionate, shaking his head like he can’t believe this is the man he fell in love with.

‘Love that nickname Eds.’

‘Yeah yeah’, Eddie dismisses, withdrawing his hand and ignoring the pout Richie’s wears because of it. He’s so soft next to Richie’s bed, open and venerable in a way he learned to hide from the ripe age of nine, the exact same time Sonia claimed that crying was a side effect of an illness Richie couldn’t bother to recall, and any time she spotted the tiniest amount of liquid in Eddie’s eyes she dragged him to the ER.

A feeling in his gut tugs, desperate to connect his lips with Eddie’s, to experience first hand how a kiss shared out of love manifests. Sure, it’s not Richie’s first kiss, but his previous kisses were either with a woman or a men dared by his friends, snickering and unknowingly shoving him deeper into the closet.

Richie prepares to leans forward, scrambling himself up by his elbows to get better access, and plonks back down with a pained yelp, his stomach flaring up in a burning sensation.

‘I told you not to fucking move’, Eddie chastise, instantly on high alert and checking Richie over to make sure nothing’s wrong. All the wires are still attached, which Richie is a plus in Richie’s books, but Eddie

‘I’m sorry, I just wanted to kiss you.’ Richie admits, though the words set fire to his ears and neck, the first spots to light up in self-consciousness.

‘Then asks and I’ll bend down for you. Are you hoping to get another surgery?’

‘No, but asking for a kiss isn’t exactly romantic now is it? Fuck me for striving to keep the romance alive.’

Eddie swoops in fast, their teeth clinking together from the force of which he comes in, their lips linking in an awkward angle.

He back-paddles, inhaling deeply and guffawing at Richie’s jaw slacked expression, then reconnects their lips properly this time. The kiss is wet, Richie stroking at the nap of Eddie’s neck and applying slight pressure to keep him positioned the way he is in. There’s too much smile for it to be a good kiss, but the simple reality that Eddie is letting Richie smooch him makes up for it. With a prodding tongue Eddie ventures out to take the kiss a step further, and Richie gracefully reciprocates.

It ends with a quick nip from Eddie’s teeth gliding over Richie’s bottom lip, and a hand forcefully pinning Richie down when he again tries to keep the kiss going by chasing after Eddie’s lips.

‘Stop moving.’

‘I’m sorry’, Richie says, and is rewarded by another small peck to satisfy him. Their faces remain in proximity, not kissing but breathing in each other’s air. Eddie untucks a piece of his hair, finger twirling the curl around and around ‘till Richie is dizzy from following the movement and is in danger of falling asleep while in the midst of a such a wonderful moment. The drugs are taking effect, and the satisfaction washing over Richie adds to the overwhelming amount of tiredness weighing Richie down. Eddie chuckles, charmed by the sleepy haze clouding Richie’s eyes.

‘You should get some sleep.’

Richie whines like a petulant child, scratching the area surrounding his eyes to help him fight of the fatigue. With an eyeroll Eddie kisses him on the forehead, above the bandage covering up the wound created by the stone in the cave, something Richie hadn’t even been aware of. He lingers above it, mounting words on the skin, little declaration of love.

Richie sniffles, harboring his eyes closed to stop the tears burning at the brim from spilling. Then, to distract Eddie, he chuckles, lining up the next best jab he could improvise at the spot.

‘Hey, now we’re finally at the same height for you to reach my forehead.’

Eddie pinches Richie’s neck, softly enough that it tickles and pulls giggles from Richie’s mouth.

‘Get some sleep sweetheart, you’re exhausted.’

‘Sweetheart? Eds you’re stealing my bits. I’m the one who petnames you. Cutie.’ He pinches the side of Eddie’s face and is rewarded by a loud groan, though Eddie doesn’t call him off for it. 

‘Too late.’ 

‘Spoon me?’ Richie questions him, patting the space next to him as an invitation, resisting the urge to pout. 

Eddie declines, ‘With your broken foot? No way. I’ll spoon you after you get better.’ Oh yeah, Richie forgot all about that.

‘How about I do this?’ He unfastens the metal bars to ease his access, then slides his arm under Richie neck to pillow him, while his other hand hovers over Richie’s wound. It’s probably done without thinking, but the small gesture, like he’s protecting Richie from more harm, soothes Richie.

Richie tucks his head in the nap off Eddie’s neck, delving in as far as humanly possible. Eddie’s hanging half of and half on the bed, in a position that must result in muscle cramps in the morning, but he’s doing it for Richie, because Richie requested it.

Security and warmth cage him in, the remnants of the chilling cold shooed away by the living furnace Eddie provided.

‘I’m really glad you’re okay Rich’, Eddie whispers after such a long time Richie believed he had fallen asleep.

‘Yeah me too.’ Richie agrees, thankful to the universe for giving him a chance with the love of his life.

The same curl Eddie untucked before continues to get the same treatment, round and round, nudging him over the edge into sleep with slow ministrations.

‘Goodnight baby’, Eddie whispers to the top of Richie’s head, tucking the curl behind his ears. Too tired to guard his honor of the nickname king, Richie doses.

**Author's Note:**

> The next day the losers come to check up on Richie and give Eddie hell for not letting them know Richie woke up, but Ben just smiles knowingly at the huddled form of his friends.


End file.
